Short-sightedness is a common eye condition, also known as myopia. It could be said that by and large, society is myopic – most individuals certainly are.

I was sat in a café today and noticed someone reading a Daniel Kahneman book at a distant table. I was sat without my glasses on and as I’m long-sighted I often look at what is going on elsewhere since, close up, things are less clear to me. Kahneman won a Nobel prize for his work challenging the assumed rationality of humans in economic theory. To over-simplify, his work empirically shows that myopic, short-term thinking drives most people’s economic activity.

Is it merely a curious coincidence that hyperopia, the word for long-sightedness, is far less well known?